


You Branded Me a Hero (I Was Never Yours to Claim)

by ArtsyDeath



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Anxiety, Aromantic Ganondorf, Body Dysphoria, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Female Link (Legend of Zelda), Gen, Mental Health Issues, Morally Ambiguous Character, Muteness, Non-Sexual Bathing/Washing, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Paranoia, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Platonic Sex, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Scars, Sign Language, Touch-Starved, imposter syndrome
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2019-11-19 03:42:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18130490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtsyDeath/pseuds/ArtsyDeath
Summary: Link wakes after seven years of suspended animation in nothingness to a world of ruin and demands for her to save it when she can barely look at her hands without disassociating so badly she knocks herself out the first time she sees her body.Ganondorf sees a hero on the brink of ruin and finds himself making an offer.-Or: sometimes the world is far more complicated than heroes and villains and there's strength in finding your own destiny against all odds.





	1. Heroes and Villains

She can hear the sound of the organ growing steadily, Master Sword dragging along the stairs with a _clack-clack-clack_ with every heavy step. There’s blood dripping form her right ear, shield abandoned half-way through the tower and her vision is fluctuating, going in and out as she staggered, barely catching herself on the wall.

Link allows the music to guide her blindly, something wretched and desperate and empty inside her chest at the same time as she clenches her jaw and struggles forward.

 _Soon you can rest,_ her mind soothes and Link wants to laugh because Ganondorf had taken Zelda and she could barely stand straight as the last adversary approached with every stubborn step forward.

 _There’s no one else who can do it,_ her mind reminds her as she nearly abandons the sword there and then, wanting to cry, to scream, knowing there was no voice to be heard, always stuck and trapped inside her own mind.

Not even the princess had bothered to listen, waving her signs away as nothing and sending her out on a mission to save the world as she lost friend after friend with temple after temple, seven years of her life stolen away and trapped in a body that didn’t feel like her own, awkward and far too big after spending seven years suspended in _nothingness._

Blood drips from her nose and she wipes impatiently at it, eyes fixating on the door at the end of the stairs as she drags the sword up into something less pathetic, mind buzzing as she pushed forward with her palm against the heavy doors and opened them up before her.

Music, heavy and foreign, the instrument unlike anything she’d ever seen inside Kokiri Forest, Ganondorf’s back broad and intimidating in front of it, dark red cape with intricate white patterns that Link didn’t recognise or understand.

And there, above him, the princess – trapped inside a crystal.

 _I want to go home,_ Link thinks as the music abruptly halts, casting the large halls into silence as she tightens her hold on the Master Sword.

“The Triforce parts are resonating again… They are combing into one.” Link stares blankly at the man, her fuzzy mind trying to make sense of the situation, the strange heavy tone in which he spoke. “The two Triforce parts that I could not capture on that day seven years ago… I didn’t expect that they would be hidden within you two.”

Link stares down at her hand, at the glowing golden triangle shining against the patch of thick scars on top of it, biting down on her lip.

“And now, finally, all the Triforce parts have gathered here.”

 _Trap,_ her instincts cautions as she takes a wary step backwards only to halt as the doors slammed shut behind her and Ganondorf rose elegantly, arm pushing the cape behind him as he turned to face them and Link finds herself eye-to-eye with the man who’d haunted her dreams since her days in Kokiri forest.

Back when everything had been simple and Saria was her best friend and not a Sage and her greatest trouble was Mido.

“These toys are too much for you,” he says, golden eyes locking onto hers as she stills in place, frozen as he bared his teeth in a grin and raised his fist, revealing the same golden triangle that marked her hand, the upper part flaring in the same sharp golden light as her own. “I command you to return them to me!”

Link barely has time to prepare herself before darkness, overwhelming and consuming slammed into her, hand raising in an attempt to brace herself as she skidded several steps back, squinting against it as Navi cried out, slamming against the wall and collapsing down on the floor with a flutter of her wings.

Thick enough that every inhalation felt like dread she clenches her teeth and takes a stubborn step forward as magic thickened in the air around the Gerudo King and the reek of darkness scattered as magic hoisted Ganondorf high up above her disbelieving eyes.

Exhaustion, thick and terrible threatened to send her to her knees at the realization of having to fight him – that she was supposed to defeat this man when all she wanted to do was to crawl back into her silly little tree house, that she hardly fit in anymore, and never ever take a step into the world again.

She glances up, catching Zelda’s horrified eyes on Ganondorf and a flash of hatred curls wretched and unwanted through her.

_If we'd never met–_

But those were dangerous thoughts and Link pushes them away as she readies her sword, faltering when Ganondorf tilts his head, a curious sort of look in his eyes, and she realizes he must have been watching her, studying her.

 _You’re slipping Link,_ her mind hisses as Ganondorf holds out his hand – energy building with a crackle of magic, eyebrow hitching up in challenge as he drew his arm back and _flung it at her._

Link does the only thing that makes sense, drawing the Master Sword back and smacking in into the ball of energy, half expecting it to burn her to crisp only to stare with a sense of disbelief as the sword actually deflected it right back, seeping its energy into it with a creep of blue, and Ganondorf tilts his head, letting it sail past him with a sharp burst of electricity against the wall.

“Clever boy,” he praises and Link swallows because the only one who'd known her true gender when growing up was Saria and she'd clung to that last bit of herself with desperation as everyone clawed at her for pieces until she barely recognised herself reflected back in the lake water.

 _I want to go home,_ Link thinks as Ganondorf holds out both hands, identical malicious magic burning inside his palms, aided by the Triforce of Power, while Link didn’t feel very courageous at all, misplaced and nothing short of desperate as she threw herself aside, twisting and throwing her weight into the swing of the sword as Ganondorf dips down with a swoosh of energy, another already flaring to life, forcing her to go nearly flat against the floor to avoid it.

“Link!” Zelda cries out and she curses mentally as she twists, pushing away and into an awkward roll that nearly sends her sprawling over the chair of the instrument and she worms beneath it in a desperate scrabble that would have suited her ten-year-old body far better, reappearing on the other side with her back pressed flat against the heavy instrument.

Heart pounding, sword still somehow in her hand, she squeezes her eyes shut and struggles against the overwhelming tiredness that pounds constant through her, wiping at the blood that had started seeping from her nose and staring blankly down at her scratched hands, now smeared with red.

 _Those are not my hands,_ she thinks distantly and the only thing that keeps her from being fried on the spot are instincts honed from months of constantly living on the edge, never relaxing, hardly ever daring to sleep – unfamiliar with the world, frightened and overwhelmed by the expectations placed on her shoulder.

“Lost in thought, Hero?” the Gerudo King mocks as he lands, that curious look back in his eyes as she stumbles back with a baring of her teeth. “I feel rather insulted – do you think so little of me that you can’t even keep your focus on me?”

She falters because he’s looking at her with a strange sort of patience, clearly waiting for an answer when most just tended to bowl right over her, especially after realizing that communication with her took time when they couldn’t be bothered to learn even the most basic of signs.

Even Mido, for all that he’d spent most of her childhood resenting her, had always _listened_.

But the people in the world _didn’t._ They asked questions that they didn’t want answer to because the answer was already expected.

Link, the Hero, saving the world without complaints.

She swallows and very, very slowly she leans the sword against the instrument with a warning look at Ganondorf, making sure she could grasp it the moment he made a movement towards her as he watches her with a strangely curious consideration that tilts into realization as she raises her hands before her.

 _‘We both know who of us are going to win today’_ **,** she signs, searching for any understanding in his eyes and resigning herself to the crease of his brow.

“No one told me the Hero was mute,” he says, a musing sort of quality creeping into his voice as the magic seeped out of him with a ruffle of red hair. “Tell me, Hero – has anyone stopped to ask what you want?”

She gives him a wary look and his mouth twitches.

“Have you seen yourself? Exhausted and paranoid and pushed to the edge of your limits – is this how the world cares for its saviour?”

She takes a step back when he takes one forward, only just remembering to grasp at the Master Sword which drags against the floor as her shoulders hits the wall behind her and a desperate sinking sort of feeling claws at her as she tilts her head up to meet glowing golden eyes of the Gerudo King.

She can hear Zelda crying out her name, unable to see what was going on behind her inside the straining walls of the crystal while Ganondorf reaches out, brushing a hand against her cheek, so achingly soft that Link stills in place because-

It was the first time anyone had been touching her in  _years._

 _Bad, bad, bad,_ her mind screams as his thumb brushes against a tear that slips unwillingly from her eye, struggling against everything crying out inside of her to lean forward, to push into it, because she had spent seven years in suspended animation, unable to move, floating in _nothingness_ that ate and ate at her and when she was finally free it was to a world in _ruins._

“What do you want, Link?” he asks her gently and the sword clutters to the ground.

 _I want to go home,_ she thinks desperately as he tilts his head, observing her.

_I want to go home, I want to go home, I want to go home-_

Her mind struggles to make sense of duty and expectation in the raw reality of having her greatest foe touching her with kindness as she reaches up to grasp desperately at his wrist, feeling _real_ for the first time since waking up, clinging to the grounding reality of his touch as he watches her barely hold herself together.

“Oh the world has done you a great injustice,” he says and she quivers, a desperate wretched sort of sob building inside of her as she struggles against it, her vision dipping and fluctuating as her fingers dug into his wrist, so very afraid of having him pull away.

“You don’t want to be here at all." He says it like a revelation and she shakes her head, more tears slipping down her cheeks because finally- finally someone was _listening_ and she didn’t even have to _speak._ “You want to go home,” he observes, achingly soft as her chests twists up so badly that she can hardly draw a breath.

 _Yes,_ she thinks desperately as his thumb brushes aside more tears. _Yesyesyes._

A rustle, something being wrapped around her as she stares blankly at him, chest rising and falling, his cloak around her shoulders as she hesitantly raises her sword arm to grasp at the ends at her throat.

She jerks when he pulls away from her only to gasp silently as a broad arm wrapped around her shoulders, another beneath her knees, hoisting her up and against his chest in a single smooth move.

Link doesn’t remember much after that, exhaustion hitting her hard as she sunk into the warmth of him, distantly aware of Zelda’s cries of her name but unable to react to it as he carried her away, the world a blurry mess, every step soothing her ragged mind.

-

Link wakes up far more comfortable than she can ever remember being and she’s tumbling out the bed, scrambling and reaching for her sword, a knife, anything as she stumbles over herself – hand grasping and dragging a heavy candelbra with a metallic screech, back hitting the wall, eyes darting desperately.

It takes her mind several seconds to sort away the clothes hanging off a chair as clothes and not a man, to decide that that shadow in the ceiling wasn’t a giant hand waiting to grasp her but just a cast of shadow, and she sinks slowly down against the wall onto her rump as she stares blankly out at the unfamiliar quarters.

The bed was large and heavy – a fine thing with red curtains that had been pulled aside and tied up in heavy ropes that could be used to cast it in complete darkness.

A scratch of her nail against the floor brought her mind to the skills of the gerudo, the lighter sand colour as familiar as it was unfamiliar from two weeks sneaking around their fortress, constantly on guard, barely catching more than a cat-nap or two before waking up in panic.

There was a large fine rug in the middle, dressers and drawers and a tall chair in front of a heavy wooden desk and there hung paintings in large golden frames on the walls.

Her hand darts and sinks into her own familiar tunic but it had clearly been washed, for her chainmail was missing and someone had folded up her cap by the bedside table, boots tucked near it. Her legs were bare but the white leggings had been torn even before she got to Ganondorf and it was a relief to see her own legs again.

Scratched and bruised, a livid scar stretching up her calf from where Ghoma had gotten her claws into her – faded now to nothing but a memory of what had started the entire journey.

She rubs against it, shivering as she tucks her legs up against her chest and rests her forehead against her knees.

 _Everything has consequences,_ her mind reminds her. _You’ve just condemned the world._

How would Zelda ever be able to forgive her? How could Link ever forgive herself? Throwing the world to ruin because she couldn’t muster up ten minutes of fight after _everything?_

She shivers as she remembers the feel of the Gerudo King’s hand on her cheek, pushing her hand up against her skin in an echo of it, feeling cold and clammy and disproportionate against too-sharp features and she yanks it down, squeezing her eyes shut and curling it tight against her belly where she wouldn’t have to look at it.

Her skin crawls and she pushes forward, reaching for the familiar feel of her boots, yanking them up and over her feet, hiding them from view, grasping at her cap and cramming it down over her short blonde hair as her chest heaved and the world spun and she fixates on the red cloak draped at the end of the bed, reaching out and grasping at it desperately.

 _Stupid,_ her mind hisses. _You’re overreacting, stop it!_

She digs her nails into her skin, focusing on the green rustle of her clothing, the red of the cloak as she gets it around her shoulders, huddling even as she quivered, jaw locked tight enough that her teeth gnashed painfully together before she manages  to force it open to a painful rush of air down starved lungs.

Link drops her head against the side of the bed, exhausted.

-

She wakes to arms sliding around her and she’s curling against it before her mind clearly identifies it, hand grasping, panic running liquidly out of her before it can take hold as she shivers with a needy noise of want.

Ganondorf pauses half-way into depositing her onto the bed and instead drops down on it and shifts to press his back up against the headboard, easily bringing her along with him, her legs settling on either side of his hips and allowing her to feel the full press of his warmth against her as a heavy hand settled against her back.

 _Bad,_ her mind reminds her even as she melts against him, pressing closer, wanting nothing more than to feel him around her, everywhere.

 _I’m real,_ Link thinks desperately as she inhales the smell of sand and dark magic. _I’m real, I’m real, I’m real-_

“Sssh, it’s alright” he says and the gentleness of it completely catches her off-guard, her hands half-way beneath his shirt, fingers curling against him, afraid and overwhelmed by her own response to him, quivering as he shifts and pulls the shirt up and over his head, allowing her to bury against his bare chest which silenced her mind into a quiet sort of focus, cheek and ear angling against him to listen to the thump of his heart.

“It was cruel of them to make you fight me,” he says, words like liquid treasure to her mind barely hanging on by the threads. “You could never have won against me like this. You’ve done well but it’s enough now.”

 _Yes,_ her mind agrees desperately. _No more fighting, I just want to go home._

But she didn’t have a home to return to, Link knew that. The tree house that had been hers had grown too small and she wasn’t Kokiri, she was Hylian, and without Saria it had been made clear by Mido that she wasn’t to return.

Saria…

Her friend who had given up everything only for Link to-

The hand on the back of her tunic drags up, settling heavy and grounding on her neck as she inhales sharply and her mind quiets with a shudder.

“You can stay here, if that is your wish,” the Gerudo King offers as she stills. “A room could easily be prepared for you." The rough pad of his thumb brushes over her sensitive skin. "I was surprised to discover your true gender,” he admits as she tilts her head up warily, golden eyes meeting blue, his eyes unreadable as he studies her. "But here it only serves you well. The gerudo are a race of warrior women, after all, and the only man they allow is their king.”

Link swallows.

Her gender had always been her own, despite everything, the one thing that she could cling to that the world didn’t demand her bare for. The fairy queen inside Death Mountain and Navi were the only ones who’d found out about it since Saria but now-

 _‘Secret’_ she signs, despite knowing he didn’t understand.

“It’s going to take time for me to learn,” Ganondorf says. “But for now I understand enough for you to finger spell it if it’s important.”

She startles, eyes widening because it was – far more than anyone had bothered during her entire journey and she draws back properly, overwhelmed, half-expecting he was lying as she raises her sword hand carefully in front of her.

_‘S-E-C-R-E-T’_

“Your gender?” he asks, to clarify, and she nods, wide-eyed and disbelieving as he gave a heavy sigh. “The more I learn of you the more disturbed I am,” he admits with a heavy dip of his mouth, poking a finger to her forehead. “Had I known you were mute I would have bothered to learn before you climbed all those stairs,” he says as she stares at him. “But judging by your reaction no-one else has taken the time to.”

She shakes her head mutely.

He mutters something in a language she doesn’t understand and her head tilts, ear twitching with curiosity.

“Hear me out, little Hero,” the Gerudo King says as she presses her palm absently against the ridged muscles of his belly. “I do not understand your reasons for hiding but no-one is going to use your gender against you here if you decide to stay.”

She averts her eyes, staring at the dark greenish tint of his skin beneath her own scratched hand.

 _‘S-T-A-Y-H-E-R-E?’_ she asks carefully.

She has to clarify three times before he realised she meant his room, his eyes widening and he mutters something in that dark rolling language of his again – studying her eyes, her body-language, the way she hadn’t stopped touching him for the entirety of their discussion.

He agrees to it with a strange look in his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ganondorf is the kind of man that is extra enough that he plays his own dramatic encounter music so he's def extra enough that he would have learnt sign-language had he known that his ultimate adversary was mute.
> 
> I was originally contemplating a simple smut piece with these two but when I sat down to write I realized how damn disturbing that was because either Link was booted as a ten-year-old into a seventeen-year-old body (which is pretty much what the game tells us) or he spent it in suspended animation which is the twist I decided to go for here because it felt severely less creepy to imagine.
> 
> And... with evertyhing going on in OoT either option is not exactly stress friendly and I've decided that Ganondorf isn't very impressed about it either.
> 
> We're going to give Link time to heal because that's important to me so we're about to take this story for a spin in the next chapter and see if we end up with two of three chapters, I'm still a bit undecided about it.
> 
> I'm artsy-death if you want to stop by on tumblr, I post bits and pieces of my projects and general nerdiness and you are very welcome to just swing by for a chat.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed!


	2. A Guiding Hand

Link doesn’t know what’s become of the Master Sword.

The thought nags at her as she stares at the fresh fruit and small knife she’d found on the bedside table when waking up, turning the strange prickly fruit this and there, dragging her thumb over the rough shell of it, feeling it beneath the callouses that had developed during the months since waking up.

She doesn’t know where Navi is, either.

She digs the nail of her thumb down into the fruit, watching dispassionately as wine red liquid beaded beneath the broken flesh, running over the back of her palms and dripping against the floor between her feet until she slowly relinquishes her grip, leaving nothing but a mushy mess in her hands.

She places it aside in the bowl where she’d found it.

 _Why are you here?_ Her mind wonders as she stares at the wall opposite the bed, counting the large sand-coloured tiles as fruit juice drips from her fingers. _Is this what you planned for your life? Locked inside these four walls with the man who is doomed to bring the world to an end._

Link’s eyes trails to the heavy door, paranoia lurching her to her feet, hand curling around the handle which unlocked with a _click_ , opening just enough to cast the light from her room into the dark hallway.

She closes it, leaning her forehead against it as her neck prickles.

 _Stop it,_ she admonishes herself. _You’re safe here._

But even as she’s thinking it the feeling of being watched grows painfully until she swivels around, staring into the empty room, chest heaving and she bares her teeth in frustration as she starts pacing, feeling like a wolf in a too small cage and knowing that it was of her own making.

 _He’ll return,_ she thinks to herself. _I can leave whenever I want._

_“How could you do this to me? You! You’re Ganondorf’s servant!”_

The memory of the small Goron named after her makes her halt in place, breathing picking up as she stares at her booted feet.

_“Dad named me Link after you, because you’re so brave!”_

_“It’s a cool name. I really like it.”_

_“Link, you’re a hero to us Gorons! I’m so glad to meet you!”_

Link slams her hands over her ears despite knowing it was fruitless, that the voices weren’t coming from around her, sinking down, squeezing her eyes shut, fingers curving, nails digging into the shell of her ears.

_“Please help, Link!”_

_Stopitstopitstopit,_ she thinks at herself, hearing the sobbing of the child that had clung to her, overwhelmed when she’d nodded her head grimly, promising him with a fist over her heart, trying to convey that she’d do her best because he was nothing but a child and he deserved his father and Link-

Link…

She’d just lost Saria. She hadn’t wanted him to experience the same hurt, desperate to reach out and make something right in the aftermath of the Forest Temple and her meeting with Phantom Ganon – her first real taste of what was expected of her after waking up.

In the end, she hadn’t brought him his father back because Darunia-

 _Stop it!_ She pushes up against the wall, feeling the scrape of rough stone through the fabric, the sharp pricks of her nails. _You saved the Gorons – you’ve done more than anyone should have asked of you and you did it because-_

_Because…_

Link slowly pries her right hand from the stiff grip around her ear, lowering it to stare at the faded gold triangle and the flesh scarred thickly beneath it.

She knows that, if she touches it, she won’t feel anything – her sense of touch completely mutilated where it stretched out.

It makes nausea curl in her cut and she forces herself to look away from it, curling her arms tight around herself to prevent herself from causing harm.

It had been Navi’s suggestion. 

Navi who fretted and watched but could do little with her small body – keeping watch through the nights when Link was so exhausted not even paranoia could make her body more than twitch.

Link doesn’t know what’s become of Navi.

Link doesn’t know what’s become of the Master Sword.

Most days she isn’t quite sure what’s become of _Link_ , either.

-

Link twitches her head up, watching the handle turn, door opening silently to reveal the tall dark King who steps inside, eyebrow rising at the sight of her as he closed it again behind him.

There’s ants crawling beneath her skin and she’s pressed up in the corner, trying and failing to convince herself of being safe and unable to budge because of it.

She’s got her knees drawn up, arms wrapped beneath and nails digging crescent shapes into the back of her bare thighs.

“Good morning,” he greets her, voice dark and rumbling as he regards her quietly with golden eyes, waiting.

Slowly and stiffly Link unlatches her fingers and places her fingers to her chin and draws them down, then places her non-dominant hand into the crook of her dominant arm and keeps it there as she folds her elbow up.

_‘Good morning.’_

“Did you sleep at all?” The Gerudo King asks as he steps towards her as she curls tighter and tighter upon herself, stiff when he folds down on one leg in front of her, seeking her gaze. “The guards tell me you haven’t left the room during the entire week I was gone.”

A tremor runs through her body.

 _How could anyone ever believe you were a Hero,_ her mind hisses as Ganondorf regards her quietly. _You just let him ride off to do whatever with the Princess while you couldn’t even muster enough courage to take a step outside the-_

Her mind quiets abruptly when a large hand curls around her own, stilling and loosening nails that had just begun to dig in without her notice.

“None of that,” Ganondorf rumbles as she stares down where their skin contrasts, feeling the rough callouses of his skin, his warmth, a fine layer of dust from the travels.

He smells heavily of musk and desert, Link thinks as she carefully shifts her hand to thread their fingers together, the pads of his fingers pushing against her palm.

“I merely stopped by to pick up a change of clothing,” the Gerudo King says in that dark rumbling roll as she uses her other hand to brush over the hair on his knuckles. “I need to clean up after travelling.” Her fingers tighten against his. “By the look of things you could use a wash as well.”

Link blinks at him but when he straightens up she’s still holding on and she finds herself pulled to her feet, drawn from the corner and grasping at his cloak when he released her to open up the dresser, picking what he needed as she fixated her gaze warily on the door.

The cloak tugs in her grasp when he steps away from her and focusing on the tall broad back of her should-be-enemy she finds herself stepping out and into the hallway.

-

Link crouches at the edge of the large pool, toes curled over the edge, just inches from the warm water steaming noticeably. There’s a metallic sort of taste to the air and a distant chatter from Navi about _minerals_ echoes at the back of her mind.

She can’t ever remember bathing in warm water – the concept echoes strange to her.

Behind her Ganondorf drops the heavy chest armour onto the rocky outcropping that looked rather like long bench stretching out between the door opening and the wall, his shoulders rolling back to ease the tension left from the weight of it.

It was a place clearly meant for more than one person – a communal bath, Link hazards, staring down at it a bit dully.

It wasn’t a strange concept – the Kokiri used to gather up together to wash at a small lake, she knew, even if she’d never been a part of it. She had bathed together with Saria and Link touches a hand to her hair, remembering hands that had wrestled her down to give it a good scrubbing, palms spreading broad across her back, an echoing, distant laughter…

A splash makes her jerk up, just in time to see the broad back of the Gerudo King as he sinks down into the water with a groan, and she watches as he ducks his head beneath the surface, giving a good shake to rid his hair of the sand that never really seemed to go away in the desert.

Link had had her fair trouble with it and it had taken her days to rid of the fine dust clinging to her tunic after her first exploration and she kept finding sand in odd places like her _ears._

He breaks the water again, fingers dragging through his hair to keep it from drooping into his eyes as he straightened up and turned to lock her in place with golden intensity.

“If you are to be sharing my room and my bed, Hero, you better get in here,” he tells her before turning his back to her, wading across the pool for the gathering of fine jars with oils crowding there.

Her jaw tightens, anxiety sparking, and she finds herself missing Navi something fiercely.

The fairy had always been comforting, soothing and helping her guide her hands when she squeezed her eyes shut and fumbled blindly to get herself clean of the blood and other sticky remnants of death, two steps away from sobbing, skin crawling, focusing with blind trust on a fairy that wasn’t even _hers_.  

She glances back up towards the tall and proud King, her eyes tracking drops of water sliding down his spine, seeing the scars, made from battle, an echo of the ones worn on her skin.

Link reaches for her hat, first, sliding it off her dusty hair and letting it drop beside her.

 _Don’t look,_ she reminds herself, squeezing her eyes shut as she forces her hands down to her belt, fumbling with the buckle there, stomach curling with every second it takes to get it open, nearly yanking it off her and throwing it aside blindly as nausea curls through her, hands shooting down to grasp at her ankles as she quivers.

 _Don’t look,_ she thinks. _Don’t look don’t look don’t look don’t-_

Link inches her hands higher, until she finds the edge of her tunic and grasps, making sure that her hands didn’t touch her skin as she slowly inches it up, freezing when she reached her chest and –

 ** _Don’t look,_** her mind hisses furiously as Link’s eyes snaps open just as a hand snags her chin and she freezes in place, locked in liquid golden.

“Breathe,” the man demands and she draws a desperate gasping breath, a tremor running through her with every following harsh inhalation and she pushes blindly into his hand as more of his palm settles against her chin, sliding up as she reaches blindly to grasp at his wrist. “Sssh,” he soothes. “There we go – in, and out.”

 _Weak,_ her mind growls but Link only clings tighter, focusing on the expanding of the man’s chest, the way his ribcage draws together when he breathes out.

“You should have told me it was an issue,” Ganondorf admonishes when she’s in risk of tipping right into the water and he guides her gently back, eyes dark with consideration. “Would if help if it wasn’t your hands touching you?”

Link wants to say _no._ Wants to say that – it’s nothing, just an overreaction, that she’ll be fine. But.

 _‘Yes’_ she admits.

“Do you want me to call for someone else?”

 _‘No’_ she says, stomach knotting.

He studies her for a moment longer and she meets his eyes – knowing and ashamed of the part that desperately craved the feel of his touch, a brush of his hands, the murmur of honeyed treasure that lurked in his words and promises.

He tugs at her until her feet slip into the water with a little jerk at the feel of warmth, lifting her hands and squeezing her eyes shut as he gently draws the tunic up and over her head, reaching behind her to loosen the bindings around her chest, brushing closer every time he leans forward to circle it off from her in the looping ties she’d drawn too tight.

She knows without looking that her skin is mottled beneath it and he brushes his thumb briefly against a particularly dark one on her ribs as he slips it off and lets it drop into a heap beside her tunic.

Her cheeks pink when he tugs at her underwear but he’s strong enough that he easily gets them off her without her help, legs dipping out of the water as he drags them down and discards them aside.

His hands settles on her arms, drawing her into the water with a whoosh of a breath as she’s enveloped in heat, the pool deep enough that the water easily enveloped her all the way to beneath her ribs.

She focuses on him, following as he draws her into the deeper part of the pool, nudging her back until her knees hits a ledge where she sinks down, water crawling up nearly all the way to her neck, remaining still as he releases her and she hears the clink of a bottle and something being poured, a wild sort of smell blossoming around them.

“Open your eyes,” Ganondorf says and she _does_ , breathing in sharply at the sight of the water that had gone opaque, covering and hiding everything from the Gerudo King’s midriff and down even with the gentle swirls as he shifted.

There’s an empty bottle beside him – expensive, Link knows, she’d seen enough of fragrant oils at the market to know _that._

And yet, he’d poured the entire thing in. For _her._

 _Why?_ She wonders, heart thudding inside her chest as she stares at him. _Why you?_ she wonders. _The Princess could barely bother to grasp the most basic of signs and yet–_

Link doesn’t understand.

 _The world is cruel,_ this is the first lesson she learns when she leaves the Kokiri Forest.

 _There's no price too high to demand of her,_ this she understands as doors seals behind her and she’s trapped, unable to move, unable to do anything but stare into the void as seven years counted by.

 _What do you want from me?_ she wonders as she watches him carefully clean his hair and beard, scrubbing himself from the dirt of the road, the fine dusty sand of the desert, while she draws her legs up to her chest beneath the water, the opaque liquid lapping at her chin, wonder and scratchy fear struggling equal inside her chest.

Ganondorf is a tall man, broad, strong, everything one could ask of a King in his cunning, watchful eyes. Her eyes drift to the back of his hand, at the Triforce settled calm against his skin, golden against dark. Proud to be worn, power waiting to be wielded by a man who sought to dominate.

Draws her hand up from the water to look at her own – marked in skin so thick with scars that she’d long lost feeling, faded and ugly against the paleness of her skin, the healthy tan of her youth gone inside the wretched walls of the Temple of Time.

Even returning to her body as it had been before hadn’t soothed the itch in her skin – the feeling of being crammed into something too small lingering and the feeling of _wrongness_ etched into her very soul.

 _That’s not my hand,_ she thinks and jerks it below the water before her mind can grasp at the thought, frustration thick inside of her.

“Do you want help washing as well, Hero?”

She glances up at him, surprised at the offer and-

There’s an eager curl to her thought, something deep deep in her chest whispering _please,_ ravaged and hungry for the feeling of his touch, his broad palms against her own skin.

She nods and he steps towards her, water parting easily as he moves and her breath hitch as he rises briefly tall through the water, eyes darting away from the heavy length between his thighs as he draws behind her, settling down, legs sidling out and leaving her between them, aware of the way he looms behind her even like this.

He presses a hand against her neck and she ducks her head with the motion, shivering as warmth licked up and over her scalp, the sensitive tips of her ears, eyes closed as he dragged his fingers through her hair, away from her face as she breached the surface, a hand wiping away the water clinging to her lashes as she swallows a desperate sort of noise, heart thudding hard and loud through her ears as he pours the same oil he’d been using for his hair and beard into his palm and reaches for her hair.

Link tenses automatically, a shudder rippling through her as he combs his fingers through the straw coloured strands, her shoulders lowers, eyes lidding as she sinks back against him, quivering as nails scratches against her scalp, the pads of his fingers working the oil into white foamy state as her head tilts with the motions, eager to keep as much of his touch on her as possible at all time, her breathing stuttering as his hands curled up and over her ears to a needy gasp as she angled his head to urge him into repeating it.

He does with a low laugh, curling his fingers with a press of his thumb against the very tip and her head tilts back, one hand darting out to grasp at his thigh, seeking to anchor herself at the strange pleasure that coils deep inside her belly.

“Has anyone touched you like this before, Hero?” Ganondorf rumbles, so close that she can feel his warm breath against her neck.

She shakes her head, shivering as his hands slide to settle against her neck, against her shoulders, down her back and the tense muscles there with a thumb that digs in to an arch of her back, a shocked gasp escaping her along with a shiver.

He makes a thoughtful little _hmm_ behind her. “So tense.” It sounds rather like an admonishment, as if it was something bad, and Links wants to ask but his hands are sliding up again and she finds herself ducking back under the water as he helps her get foamy liquid off before drawing her back against his chest, one arm curling around her midriff to keep her close and anchored as her head rolls against his should, mind pleasantly numb from worries and thoughts at the feel of his warmth.

“You’re lucky,” he rumbles, hand dragging down the side of her face as she angles into it. “That I am not that kind of man.”

Link isn’t quite sure what he’s talking about and she finds that she doesn’t care, content to remain in his arms as the world centers into the feel of him, at the scent of the water, at the rise and fall of his chest behind her.

It’s the first time her mind associates washing with something pleasant and she’s hard pressed to give it up, even when he nudges at her to straighten up.

“Hold out your hands,” the Gerudo King murmurs behind her and she tenses. “Trust me,” he urges and she slowly, very slowly, does as asked, watching as soft lilac oil spilled into the palm of her hands, bottle places aside and large hands sliding up to settle against the back of hers, enveloping and dwarfing them. “If you want to stop, just shake your head, do you understand?”

She quivers but nods her head, eyes squeezing shut as he gently guided her palm flat against her shoulder, sliding their hands down, all the way to where he was grasping her and then up, making sure to get the underside, smoothing down the soft pale hair beneath her armpit before doing the same with her other arm, one eye cracking open to watch the slide of oil left against her skin, ants prickling beneath her skin and then soothed with the dual touch of their hands as she draws a quivering breath.

He guides her down her sides, skipping her chest entirely, helping her wash her belly, her thighs, her legs and all the way to her feet where he dips a teasing thumb against the arch of her foot to a jerk at the ticklish feel, something slowly easing inside of her even as her skin crawls, too aware of her body, at the wrongness.

When he guides them to her chest she jerks her head sharply and he releases her immediately, trading their touch for arms that draw her up tight against him, chin settling on top of her head with a gentle noise meant to sooth as tension coiled thorough her, fingers clawing against his thighs.

“You did good,” he murmurs and her ear twitches, feeling the rise and fall of his chest as her eyes closes and slowly eases at the words. “So good, little Hero.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uploading this a bit sooner than I meant because I took a break from studying to sit and write in the sunshine and it just... ended up done. 
> 
> The response has been amazing, thank you so much for your kind words! I'll respond properly after Thursday when I finally get time to write properly again. This month has been a slow and arduous task of getting myself through three history books in preparation for a six hour dual test so wish me luck on that! 
> 
> It was requested by _MeadowMellow_ that I make this longer than the two/three chapters originally planned and I am ever so happy to oblige. I'm not sure how many I'll settle on but I left a question mark for now because I'm slow-burning this healing.
> 
> Thank you all again <3
> 
> Artsy-death on tumblr if you want to chat,
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


	3. Desire

Link stares down at the small stack of papers in front of her, at the dark coal crayons that Ganondorf had left for her with a ruffle of her hair to her immediate confusion.

 _Does he want me to write him something?_ Link hazards a bit unsurely, dragging a thumb over the thick expensive paper, because Ganondorf is the King and from what she’s coming to understand of him that meant not doing anything by halves.

Link could write – she isn’t terribly good at it and reading could be slow but Saria had taught her the letters and before the Temple of Time she’d been steadily, if awkwardly, gotten through the short stories Saria brought for her during their afternoon lessons.

She’d been especially fond of one about a lost skeleton and at the end of their lessons she’d always beg Saria to read it properly and her friend would comply as Link sprawled out with her head in Saria’s lap, closing her eyes in their small clearing as her friend and guardian spun it, always with small changes, warrying the length of it.

Saria had written the story for her, the drawings accompanying the text endearing and familiar and Link had been so very proud to stack it onto her shelf inside her tree house.

Her _home_.

A bit absently she finds herself drawing the first line of it – the soft curve of the entrance, tracing down the ladder leading up to it, remembering the crookedness of the fourth one with a little twist of her wrist. Makes the small fenced area that Saria had insisted on after Link nearly walked right out and off it.

Sometimes they’d sat there, backs to it, sharing breakfast or sweet sticky nectar gathered from flowers.

She takes her time drawing the tree, the base of it where she carefully traces the drawings they’d made when she was still yet very young – one of her first memories with Saria right there beside her, making her own lines into the rough bark.

_“This is your home now, Link.”_

She doesn’t remember anything before that but Link supposes that she must have been with Saria for she can’t remember a part of her life that isn’t filled with the smell of sunshine and grass tickling at her nose.

 _And now she’s gone,_ her mind reminds her and Link nearly jerks a line through the entire drawing, only just yanking it away before she could.

Her tree house stares back at her, childish lines of dark against white paper.

Link’s arms goes lax and she tips herself back against the wall with a dull _thunk_ , drawing resting on top of her thighs, her sword hand smeared with dark coal where she’d clenched it tight.

 _What would Saria say if she could see you now?_ her mind whispers, remembering the aching sadness in the eyes she had so loved, the curl of her hands just before she disappeared.

‘ _I’m sorry’._

Perhaps Saria had always known what would become of her but she had not raised Link as if she did. She’d enjoyed mock sword fighting and Saria had indulged but never pressed, content to let her roll in the grass and teach her the letters so she could read and they’d spent many days simply sprawled out beneath the large trees of the forest with the taste of honey on their lips.

Perhaps Saria had hoped they’d have more time before such things – Link aches to ask but a part of her doesn’t want to know.

It’s Saria who teaches her how to sign from a book she brings home after disappearing for almost a month, Link left in the care of Mido who growled and paced but grudgingly made sure she had breakfast and dinner and a warm bed to crawl into.

Mido had never liked her but he’d been one of the first to learn when he realised just what Saria brought home for Link.

 _Kind_ – that is what the Kokiri had been and Link hadn’t been prepared for the cruelty of the world beyond the reach of their forest.

 _I want to go home,_ she thinks, the thought falling jagged inside the empty yawn of the darkness inside of her.

Feeling antsy she rips the page off and lets if fall beside her, grasping for some sort of distraction in the sharp jaggedness of Volvagia’s curling horns, the gaping maw of Lord Jabu Jabu, the spindly legs of Gohma, the eerie eyes of the shadow she’s faced in the Water Temple, the four circling ghosts and Phantom Ganon in the Forest Temple, a dark shadowy hands dangling from the ceiling, the larger hands of Bongo Bongo, the Brain Eater in the well and-

Link stares down at the page, so dark so dark, not a single speck of white left in it, and touches trembling fingers against it.

-

Ganondorf pauses when he steps into the room and Link gazes up a bit guiltily among the many papers spread around her, two of the coal crayons worn down to stumps and not a single paper left untouched, ashy hand prints on her arms and tunic and legs where she’d touched down thoughtlessly.

“I see you’ve been busy,” he comments mildly, eyes straying over the pictures, the violence of the creatures gazing back at him. “And I think,” he says. “Someone is in need of another bath.”

She ducks her head as he turns around and calls out, a Gerudo woman dropping down almost immediately with a dip of her head at the murmur of a low command in that dark rolling language of his that fell liquidly against her ears.

He closes the door, stepping inside and closer to her as Link half-heartedly reaches for the closest picture, the one of her tree house, pushing it slightly out of sight.

Ganondorf crouches down in front of her and brushes his fingers down the cheek of Dark Link resting against the tree in the large mirror room with a cocky tilt of her head, lacking only the red glow of her eyes.

He pauses at the dark void of the nothingness, eyes sliding back to her when she stiffened, carefully averting her gaze away from him.

“You know, Hero, we all wondered where you disappeared to when the Temple of Time closed its doors,” Ganondorf says, his voice rough and golden against her starved senses. “I don’t think I like what I suspect.”

She stills when his fingers curl beneath her chin tilting it up until she reluctantly meets his gaze.

Her shoulders locks tight when the doors open behind her but Ganondorf never moves, keeping her shielded behind his larger form as water is carried inside into the large bathroom, his thumbs sliding to brush over a sooty print on her cheek, responding in a low voice to the Gerudo woman who stops with a bow before closing the door shut behind her.

Link sucks a low breath of surprise as Ganondorf shifts and slides his hands beneath her armpits, hoisting her up as he rose, an arm settling beneath her rump as she pressed down with her palms against the dark armour as he carried her as easily as if she weighed nothing, her body close to his.

The bathroom is large and the brass bathtub had been filled up with hot water, the scent of something like tree sap and honey dew tickling in a strange combination.

He places her down on her feet, letting her stand there as he stripped out of his armour and boots, rolling up the white sleeves of the shirt beneath it before reaching for her clothes.

“Close your eyes,” he reminds her and she does as told, remaining still as he helped her out of her clothes with deft hands, stroking his palms soothingly against the skin of her hip, a little tickle of nails against her spine and then a pinch of her rump which made her snap her eyes open with a little jerk and a baleful look at him.

He laughs, drawing her closer, her breasts pushing up against his shirt, and her mind veers between melting against him and escaping the awareness of her body’s offness before she pushes forward, inhaling the scent of musk and sand as his hand settles warm and grounding between her shoulder blades.

“Good girl,” he murmurs softly and she shivers at the praise, breathing out as she reluctantly pushed away from him and stepped into the water, sinking into the warmth with a little shudder as the opaque liquid rose high, hiding her body beneath it as she drew her knees to her chest.

“Tell me little Hero, you met Nabooru in the Spirit Temple didn’t you?”

 _‘Did,’_ Link agrees, raising her head and meeting the golden eyes of the King. _‘Friend?’_

“Mm,” Ganondorf agrees, settling down on the stool beside the tub, looking strangely normal in just his pants and open shirt. His red hair had grown longer since her first stay here, the strands brushing by his ears, fiery and contrasting against his skin, his beard shorn short against his chin. “She was my second-in-command.”

 _‘Loved her?’_ Link asks curiously because there’s a strange look in the depth of his eyes and he surprises her with a laugh, her ears twitching at the sound.

“No,” he tells her with a shake of his head. “I am not one for romantic love, never have been and never will be.”

She gives him a curious look, her fingers curling around her toes beneath the surface of the water.

“I take it such a thing sounds strange to you,” Ganondorf murmurs, voice rough and yet so beautiful. “But the world is full with different kinds of love and I loved her as a dear friend and that was more than enough for me. I belong to my people first and foremost.”

It is strange to hear him speak like this and Link’s eyes lingers on him.

In Hyrule the Gerudo are whispered about in fear and spoken with harsh words that made her mouth flatten and turn disapproving eyes upon them until they took note and quieted.

The world is a strange place, filled with cruelty in words spoken, those who are perceived as different judged harshly. She’d heard it with the Zora, had listened to Ruto’s quiet marvel when she was ten and hoisting the other girl up on her back without hesitation after the defeat of Barinade.

 _“Some humans think of us as little more than smart fish,”_ Ruto had confessed, her breath cold against Link’s ear and her ankle dangling bruised in a spread of purple against the white and blue speckled skin. _“But you never once hesitated to risk everything for me.”_

When they had finally escaped Lord Jabu Jabu’s belly Ruto had pressed her lips against Link’s and sent her scrambling, beat red, hands flailing out in front of her, but the Princess’s eyes had been soft and she’d waved a cheeky goodbye when Link made her absolute best to beat a hasty retreat with startled eyes glancing frequently back.

And then seven years later they’d met again only for Ruto to reveal herself the Sage of the Water Temple with regret and heavy eyes.

 _“In another world…”_ she’d murmured, arms stretching up above her to summon the medallion.

Saria had told her stories about love – of parents loving their children, of friends who prevailed through everything, but the Kokiri were children and not at the same time and there’d been little about the romantic sort of love in the adventures she told.

 _“She kissed you!”_ Malon had exclaimed with wide-eyes and hands over her mouth when Link was ten and the two of them were resting against Epona under the starry sky. _“What was it like?”_

Malon didn’t know sign and while Link was a good gesturer she couldn’t even begin to put into words the strangeness of it and had merely made a vague gesture of _it was_ which had made the other giggle.  

Romance isn’t something Link understood or had time for after stepping out of the Temple of Time in a body that wasn’t hers with a burden she hadn’t asked for in a town filled with dead and rotten zombies who turned gaping mouths upon her.

 _‘You miss her,’_ Link observes carefully and Ganondorf gives her a long look that makes her shoulders draw up a bit unsurely.

“I do,” he admits finally. “But she made her decisions and I made mine.”

 _‘I liked her,’_ Link finds herself telling him, hands moving carefully. ‘ _She was kind.’_

“She asked more of you than she had any right to,” Ganondorf responds and Link pauses, hands slowly sinking down beneath the water to curl a bit unsurely around her ankles because she couldn’t deny it. “I am not faultless, I could have done a lot of things in ways that would have been more in line with what she believed in and I’m coming to realise that I’ve been hasty in some of my decisions.”

 _‘H-a-s-t-y?’_ Links asks, and then gives him the sign for it when he watches her motions patiently.

“Yes,” he agrees with a strange heaviness but does not expand upon it.

It has been nearly three months since he brought her here and despite the time Link finds that she understands little of him, her brow creasing as she reaches out for his hand, folding their fingers together in a silent offering of comfort.

He breathes out, giving her hand a soft squeeze in return, golden eyes lingering on their hands for a long moment.

“We should get you clean – it’s well past dinner time,” he says finally, releasing her and reaching for one of the glass bottles on the side, pouring it into his hands as she shifts, closing her eyes and remaining patiently still as he washed her down, taking his time to rid of the soot from her fingers and the dips by her nailbeds, breath hitching momentarily when his hands strokes firm over the swell of her chest and then down, brushing over the hair low between her legs before continuing down her thighs.

Afterwards he wraps her in a large towel and hoists her out, nudging her along back into the room where a tray of food were already waiting for them.

Instead of re-dressing her in her tunic she finds herself with a large red shirt tugged over her head, blinking a bit in surprise as she touches her fingers against it, enjoying the softness of it, her legs bare with only underwear beneath it.

It isn’t that different from her usual tunic, she decides, tugging the sleeves up by her elbows as Ganondorf takes inventory of the food, something warm and spicy tickling at her nose when she inhales.

He settles on the floor on a soft pillow in front of the low table and Link folds down beside him, finding a bowl of stew nudged towards her along with some freshly made bread and a mug with sweet tea.

He tells her about the raids near the border while they eat, the problems of his people, the imprisonment of a man who’d sought them out to take something he had no right to, tells her of a small girl born to one of the younger Gerudo’s with pride in his voice.

 _He loves them,_ she thinks and does not doubt.

She finds herself wondering what might have been had the story been told differently, if Nabooru had remained here as his second-in-command, seated opposite him with her long red hair and amber eyes challenging and supporting him equally.

Wonders if, just maybe, there’d been more to the decision in allowing her to remain here than she’d first thought as she watches him.

-

Ganondorf is warm beneath her, the green tint of his dark skin pretty in the cast of the moon reaching its glow thorough the window high on the wall.

She’s resting with her head on his chest, feeling the way it rises and falls, his arm drawn over her back to rest a heavy hand on her hip, the other loose beside him. She breathes in the scent of him, that musky undertone mixing with the herbal scent of the oil he’d drawn through his hair and beard.

He’s strangely quiet when he sleeps – no soft snores, just the heavy inhale and exhale, the occasional rumble or sigh when he shifts.

Link can’t sleep, reluctant to revisit her dreams and the expanse of nothingness that always waited to drag her back under, so instead she counts his breathes, listening to the steady beat of his heart, the King warm and steady and alive beneath her.

His hand tightens briefly at her hip, drawing her closer with a rough exhale that ruffles the hair on her head and Link squirms until she’s tucked carefully beneath his chin, her head angled low with the corner of her lips pressing against the surprisingly soft skin near his collarbone.

She likes these evenings the best with him – a part of her dreading the inevitable leaving when he had to attend to his duties in the morning.

It’s a guilty sort of pleasure.

 _Selfish,_ her mind reminds her and she squeezes her eyes shut.

She’s not stupid, she knows what he’s done, had tasted the fear and horror of it in the Forest Temple with the swirling rise of the Phantom and inside the heat of Death Mountain, hammer heavy in her hand and sweat staining her tunic, every breath tasting of ash as she freed one Goron after the other before staring down the glowing eyes of Volvagia.

But it echoes with the reality of the softness of his hand against her cheek, the promise of not having to fight as he wrapped his cloak around her and drew her up and into his arms.

The deft touch of him against her skin, ridding of the dirt and sweat with a kindness that’s both unfamiliar and overwhelming.

Something low in her gut stir at the reminder and she shifts with a little hitch of her breath as the spread of her legs brushed up against him, swallowing as his grip tightened, a stutter of her breath as she recalled the sight of his heavy member in the bath.

Sex isn’t entirely foreign thing – she’d heard about it amidst whispers and giggles, in prideful proclamations amidst soldiers, but she hadn’t spared it much thought what it might be like when her own touch only brought horror.

But she likes the way Ganondorf touches her - the low curl of warmth low in her belly when his palms strokes over her chest and down between her legs, the little ache the feel of his body against hers brought.

She wonders what it might feel like to have more than what they already have.

He'd been so  _large_ and she's so very small in comparison and she doesn’t feel as off in beneath his touch, their differences soothing, her hands small in his, feeling the sheer strength of his muscles as he drew her tight, nosing against her neck with his warm breath.

Link presses down with her palms against his chest, wiggling a bit as his arm tightened with a grunt before sliding down to tighten against her hip as she rose a bit triumphantly, squirming lower on his lap so that she was nearly straddling his thighs.

He doesn’t wear much clothing when asleep, just a dark shirt and white underwear garments which tied at the sides, her fingers brushing down to touch against one of the knots.

She tilts her head, tries to picture it, her mind scrambling for the whispers she’d heard, about hilting deep and hard, about the raucous laughter of _size_ and the women’s favourites among the guards.

Her palm presses down where his shirt had ridden up, seeing the muscles of his abdomen, tracing the v-that dipped down, her hand gliding down and over the soft well visible against the white fabric with a little hitch of her breath as she felt the contours of his member.

She traces up, against herself, the apex of her thigh with a little furrow of her brow, nose flaring.

She wonders if he smells different down there but something halts her from bending down.

Instead she flattens her palms against his hips and clenches down as she rocks her body forward, nearly pitching herself forward as something _good_ registered on her senses with a soundless gasp, her head dipping forward as she blinked, a small quiver in her lower belly and walls clenching down.

Link bites down on her lip and does it again, pouting when it didn’t repeat, squirming higher up against him until his member aligned beneath her, shifting a bit unsurely, head cocking.

She wants that feeling again, fingers flexing as she gave an experimental roll, pausing as something else registered on her senses, a swelling between her thighs as his grip tightened and she pushed down as the body beneath her rose in a lazy roll and _oh_ , Link jerks, eyes flaring wide as the bulge between her legs dragged up and against _something good._

Her nails digs into his hips as he did it against, a rumble building through the chest beneath her and when she looks up a bit guiltily she finds golden eyes staring back, still dark from sleep but with a small smirk that relaxes something inside of her.

“This is a pretty sight indeed,” Ganondorf says, his voice rough from sleep, and Link feels momentarily bad for waking him as he pushes up and she finds herself sliding down into his lap, his beard scraping rough against her jaw as he bent forward, his fingers stroking up against her spine to a little shiver. “I wonder what kind of thoughts brought this on,” he rumbles.

 _‘Felt good’,_ she tells him with a twist of her fingers.

“Did it now?” he asks, amusement in the thick of his voice as his hand trails down, giving her rump a squeeze as she fought against the urge to press down against him, feeling the way he strained half-hard between her legs, warm and heavy where he pressed up against her.

“I’ve seen the way you respond to my touches,” he murmurs, lips brushing soft against her throat, her hand coming up to curl into his shirt. “So I shouldn’t be surprised.”

His mouth seals down against her neck, sucking as she drew a sharp little breath with a low whine, head tilting helplessly to bare it further.

“I can make you feel good, Hero. Do you want me to?” he asks, an almost teasing lilt to his voice as his fingers trail over her abdomen to a little raise of her hips as he ghosted down between her legs with a brief touch against her underwear.

She pushes closer in response, nodding against his chest, heart pounding hard as he wrapped his arm around her, hoisting her up as he used the other hand to snap the sides of her underwear and discard them aside.

“There are many ways to feel pleasure,” Ganondorf murmurs against her skin with a drag of his tongue over the bruise left in the wake of his tongue, his fingers curling down and between her legs as Link breaths hitches, feeling the callouses of his fingers as he drags between her wet folds. “Have you ever been touched like this?”

She shakes her head, a small tremor running through her.

“How selfish of me to be pleased by such a response,” he rumbles darkly with a nip against her skin.

His fingers curl, stroking up over her bundle of nerves with a press of his thumb as her breath hitches and hips jerks against him, her breath warm against his chest as he rubbed almost lazily against her, her walls clenching down with a little breathy whimper as the knotted feeling in her gut tightened at the press of his calloused fingers against her.

He shifts and she gasps as his palm grinds against her in rolling circles as her nails sank into his skin, sweat beading at her back as she clung to him, legs spreading wider, wanting more.

“Just relax,” he breathes as his index fingers folds and presses slowly into her, her back tensing as he sunk into her, the feeling strange, her body opening up to swallow him inside warm wet walls that clenches around him to a rumbled groan against her neck as his hips gave a little jerk beneath her, his cock hard.

“There we go,” he murmurs, voice rough and strained. “Such a good girl.” She tightens around him at the praise, his mouth ghosting warm and wet against her neck as he pressed a second finger against her opening, hips shifting before stilling, anticipation and anxiety alike rolling through her as she strained before swallowing him inside, fingers twisting and stretching deep, deep into her body.

His free hand settles on her hip, tightening momentarily as he urged her up, fingers dragging out of her, pushed down to take them back as she spread around the thick calloused fingers of the Dark King.

“Just like that,” he urges and Link presses down with her knees, allowing him to guide her into a slow rolling rhythm with a rumble of encouragement as she squeezes around him, his palm pressing up against her bundle of nerves as she sinks down, the stretch strange but also good as the pads of his fingers curls and drags against her walls with a little stutter of her rhythm.

“It feels good, doesn’t it?” he groans against her ear with a little nip against the sensitive tip of it. “You like it – the feeling of me inside of you.” His voice is rough, straining as he presses her down just a bit harder, her mouth opening in a soundless gasp as she clenched down with a wet noise that makes him growl, pressing up as she sinks down, impaling her harder, deeper, his fingers spreading inside of her.

Her toes curl, allowing him to take her as she clings helplessly to him.

It doesn't take long before she comes, pressing down hard on him as pleasure shot through her, walls sealing tight as he bites down into her neck and his hips rolls up beneath her. “Oh the things you do to me, little Hero,“ he growls against her skin as he drags his fingers out of her and hauls her up, twisting and pinning her down on her belly beneath him as he yanks her tunic up to her midriff to bare her rump with a stroke of his palm against the swell of them.

There’s a rustle of fabric and then something hard was pressing up between her buttocks as he settled large and heavy across her thighs.

“Just- stay like this,“ he asks of her with a strained exhale as he levelled more of his weight upon her and pressed forward.

Link doesn't think anything could have prepared her for the feel of his heavy cock, warm and thick and heavy as he made use of her body to jerk himself off as he grasped at her hip and smeared the fingers still wet from her around his length to aid his thrusts with a growl.

He comes with a snap of his hips and a splatter of warm seed against her back, growling as he milked himself against her with a rough exhale before reluctantly drawing back, tucking himself back into his pants without giving her a chance to get a closer look at him.

She blinks at him as he collapses down beside her, golden eyes catching and glowing the light from the moon.

“Don’t get me wrong, Hero, I’ve had less pleasant awakenings, but are you sure you understand what you’re getting yourself into?”

 _No,_  Link thinks to herself because he’s a King and her enemy but she wants him anyway and that is a very dangerous thing for a Hero.

 _‘Want you’_ she signs because in a horror torn world he had offered her respite without demanding anything in return.

He huffs, eyes glittering as he hauls her up while rolling onto his back, leaving her sprawled out on top of him, uncaring of the way his seed seeped down her back and between the spread of her cheeks as he looks upon her in his red shirt, hair messy and with a soft spread of colour on her cheeks and chest.

“Rest now, little Hero,” he murmurs, reaching up to settle a palm against her neck, drawing her down against him with a rough exhale. "We'll talk more in the morning."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In where there's some thinking and some talking and a little bit more between them.
> 
> I meant to post this ages ago but I couldn't get the first half of it to do what I wanted and I've decided that I might as well just upload it or I'm gonna remain stuck on this chapter forever.
> 
> I'm artsy-death on tumblr,
> 
> I hope you enjoyed!


	4. First Steps

”Come here.” Ganondorf beckons for her and Link slides off the bed, stealing two of the dried apple pieces with her with an inquiring tilt of her head when she spotted the clothes in his hands. “You’re coming with me today,” he tells her and she balks, eyes narrowing even as he took a step closer and tugged the tunic up and over her head.

She remains still as he wraps her chest up, chewing on the apple piece sticking out of her mouth as he gets her into a pair of white pants and a soft blue shirt that fits her surprisingly decently.

 _‘Why?’_ she asks him as he hands her the scruffy boots that had followed her since the Temple of Time.

“Because you can’t stay in here forever,” he says, securing a dark green draping fabric that only covers half his chest and stretches out richly with a pattern of gold down his bare legs, leather sandals in fine leather reaching almost all the way to his knees.

It’s not the first time she’s seen him in such clothing, though he often choses to wear simple tunics with string at the base of his throat when in her company. The dark armour wasn’t really fit for desert life and he wore in rarely unless he was heading out towards Hyrule for reasons she refuses to linger on.

 _‘Why?’_ she presses because she likes it here, knows she’s safe here, and the world feels large and daunting outside its walls.

“The world won’t go away, Hero,” Ganondorf tells her, as if reading her mind, and her mouth curls down. “And it’ll be good for you to see that there is good, even here.”  

 _You’re good_ , she wants to say childishly, but she knows it isn’t the truth. He’s good to her, true, but that doesn’t necessarily make him a good man and it would be naïve to claim such.

“We also need to have a talk, you and I, and if you’re good I’ll take you somewhere nice.”

The reminder of what had gone down between them during the night makes her cheeks darken and head turn, refusing to meet the amused golden eyes of the Gerudo King.

“I’ll be right beside you and you don’t have to speak with anyone if you don’t want to but I’ll be your voice if you do,” he says, holding out a hand in offering, and she stares at it for a long moment before reluctantly reaching out and clasping it.

She clings to it tight as he gives her a little tug out of the room, door closing behind them and ill-ease creeping through her as she follows, head craning and steps lengthening until she was nearly pressed up against him.

There’s no Master Sword of shield to ground her, just Ganondorf, a man by all reason should be wanting her dead and her memories of sneaking through the Gerudo fortress makes her swallow as they step out and into the whirling sand of the desert, eyes squinting momentarily against the bright light as she glanced left and then right – not sure what she was expecting when guards didn’t immediately swirl around them.

The desert is very different from the forest she had grown up in – a different sort of beauty, she decides, as she follows him, lingering on the women going about their day, most of them with red or brown hair, the occasional dark and even white hair among the older women.

Nearly all of them wear the sensible open clothing of the desert and she feels a bit like the odd-one out in her pants and tunic despite knowing that her skin wasn’t made for the harsh glow of the sun and would burn red easily even with the potion Ganondorf had rubbed onto her cheek and nose and ears after the bath they’d taken together that morning.

She’d once been a healthy dark tan but the Temple of Time had robbed her of it, had left her nearly ghostly pale, and though she’d regained some of the colour it was a far-cry from what had been from the long warm forest sunshine that was a constant all year round.

Her hand cramps around his but he makes no show of notice as one of the younger warriors approaches, her brown eyes lingering momentarily on Link who was doing her absolute best to pretend she didn’t exist, amusement in her voice when she spoke to Ganondorf in that rolling language that Link found terribly beautiful.

The woman’s voice is lighter than Ganondorf’s, adding a different sort of lilt to the language, even as he responds in that dark rumble that makes her long ears twitch.

She finds herself wondering what it would be like to have him read to her, like Saria once had.

“That was Ebeku,” he tells her when the woman bowed low before excusing herself. “She’s in charge of the horse riding here. She told me she recognised you as the strange rider who took on the challenge in the Gerudo Training Grounds.”

Link remembered that – she’d been wary but determined and at the end of it, when she claimed her prize, she’d been offered water and someone had taken the time to rub down and feed Epona after the many hours she’d spent inside.

“You’ve been quite busy.” He sounds wryly amused, perhaps because his own people had, if unknowingly, assisted the person that would have been responsible to stand up against him had she been more than she was.

Link doesn’t much feel like a Hero, hadn’t ever, and she doesn’t understand why the Triforce had seemed it fit to claim her as the representative piece of Courage.

It feels like a terrible mistake and she loathes the piece that glows soft over the marred stretch of her skin despite her best attempts to rid of it during fits of mania that had left her shivering and wretched after facing down yet another horror.

She suspects that if she’d been able to move during the suspended nothingness in the Temple of Time she might have been tempted to chew it right off on the off-chance it’d make it release her.

She hadn’t been in a very good state of mind when she was finally able to move, Zelda greetings her in the disguise in Sheik with a harp in her hand and not as much as a _how are you?_

Link resists scratching at it only because it’s half-hidden beneath Ganondorf’s grasp on her hand and instead forces herself to focus on the happenings around her, listening as the King spoke and helped and answered any and all who approached him as he made his way around.

It suits him, is clearly familiar to him, and Link’s eyes lingers on a woman who approaches them with a small babe tucked near her chest in a clever wrap that leaves her hands free.

 _A daughter,_ she remembers, because that was how the blood of the Gerudo ran, giving birth to a King every hundred years.

 _‘How old are you?’_ she asks curiously when the mother excuses herself, giving his wrap a little tug to draw his attention.

“Forty-three,” he answers her and she blinks at him. “Must seem terribly old to someone like you,” he says wryly but she shakes her head.

Saria had been far older than that, Link knows, though she’d kept the exact number behind a sad little smile that Link had never found herself willing to push at.

But forty-three meant that it was a good while yet before another King was expected to rise up and she wonders what might have become of the Gerudo without him there and Nabooru gone.

They’re a warrior tribe and she doesn’t doubt that they’d survive but they needed a representative to keep in contact with the rest of Hyrule, so much Link knows and understands from her conversations with different leaders and races through her journey.

The Kokiri had been fine, too, but there’s a lot of the world she doesn’t understand from growing up far away from it. Saria was the only one of them Link had ever known to leave.

 _‘If you die, who would rule here?’_ she asks him, finger-spelling the signs she knew he wasn’t yet familiar with and trading them for the proper signs.

So far she hadn’t needed to repeat any sign twice but death and ruling wasn’t something that had come up often.

“Ebeku, likely,” he tells her as they thread their way to the area where Link knew the Gerudo kept their cattle. “If not her, then Sonooli. They are both young but strong and they are the ones responsible for the safety of my people in my absence.”

She likes that he doesn’t have to think about it, the answer coming up almost absently.

_He cares._

It feels important, somehow, that he does.

-

Link finds herself slowly relaxing as they day progress, releasing the King to do some exploration of her own, realising with a strange twist in her chest that she’d missed the simplicity of just moving and helping with the things that made sure that everyone had water and food and clothes on their backs.

In the Kokiri forest everyone helped to make sure they had what needed – food was always shared and there were only one store that asked for money. Trade was how they got by and Link had spent many early mornings chopping down wood to drag back, afternoons by the small lake with her fishing rod and evenings gathering the nectar of the flowers that only bloomed beneath the light of the moon.

The Gerudo way of life reminds her of it – a community rather unlike the Hylian life where she’d seen more than one begging on the streets.

Supportive, there, making sure everyone had the necessities no-matter their skills, age or contributions.

Ganondorf raises an eyebrow when she gives him a hard tug and gesture but translates her signs and Link finds herself carrying a large jug of water after some careful observations and awkward gesturing with an elder Gerudo woman who comments something to her King which makes him call something sharply back with a grin.

“You’re strong,” one of the younger women says appreciatively when Link makes her way past and she gives an awkward smile in return. “I’m Namur, you are the one our King calls Hero, aren’t you?”

Link blinks at her – surprised that Ganondorf spoke of her at all– but inclines her head all the same.

“Do you have an actual name?” the woman prods.

She’s tall even for a Gerudo, her hair almost orange beneath the sun, braided back and away from her face, and her nose sharp and proud in an angular dark face.

Link places the jug of water down and makes a helpless sort of gesture to her throat that makes her eyes widen briefly before snapping around. “Hey, Rannii, you speak with your hands, don’t you?” she calls loudly across the water.

A Gerudo in her mid-thirties turns around to face them, hair short and brown and already speckled with white by her temples.

She makes a very rude gesture in sign which makes Link nearly drop the empty jar she’d been hauling up.

“Translate the kid’s name, would you?” Namur calls with a flash of teeth.

Rannii turns to Link and despite the distance she puts the jar down and signs _L-I-N-K_ carefully and clearly.

“Kid’s name is Link!” Rannii hollers back, already turning to haul up a net of fish from the lake with clear dismissal.

“Hylian name?” Namur inquiries and Link shakes her head because it was the Kokiri who’d named her.

The other woman hums.

“Well, nice to meet you, kid,” she says, hauling up a jar half her size with ease as Link copies her, muscles pleased to be put into action.

 _“You too,”_ she mouth, wondering what was the point of asking for her name if the woman wasn’t planning on using it anyway.

The sun is warm, the sand stings as it whips past her and her cheeks are most certainly red, but she feels… good, somehow, when she grasps at Ganondorf’s hand and waves goodbye to several cheerful calls back.

He gives a low whistle and Link perks up at the sight of the large black stallion that approaches them.

“I think it’s time for your reward,” he murmurs into her ear before hoisting her up and stepping into the stirrups to swing up behind her.

A woman hands them a small package in an exchange of words and Ganondorf inclines his head with a dry sort of tone before turning them around to the large expanse of the desert.

-

The rhythm of the horse is a familiar thing and though her heart aches for Epona she knows the mare would have done the sensible thing and returned to Malon when she didn’t make a reappearance.

She’d found Epona there more than once, grazing among her kin to the gentle lullaby of the horse girl who thought of her as _the fairy boy._

Link isn’t terribly sure Malon even knew her real name, it hadn’t seemed to matter, somehow.

Ganondorf keeps one arm around her midriff as he guides the horse up some rocky cliffs after nearly an hour of travelling and then down in a tight spiral before everything expanded out in a large spread of sand and growth and a stretch of water, the plants which were so rare in the desert rich here and she’s off the horse before they could come to a stand-still.

The King is slower, eyes lingering upon her as she touched against a large leafed thing with soft downy covering.

“You grew up in the forest, didn’t you?” he calls as he gives the horse a pat on the neck before it bent down to nibble on a small growth of straw-coloured grass. “I thought you might like it.”

 _‘I love it’_ she signs a bit distractedly.

As she busies herself with the wild desert growths Ganondorf settles on a flat rock cropping and fishes for the carefully wrapped bundles of food that had been brought to him – unwrapping rich meats from palm leaves and finding a pouch with richly scented wine which he takes an appreciative swallow of.

The world had been cruel to its Hero and while she was hesitant to give up the comfort and safety he offered she’d reached out, had even offered to help without even a nudge from him.

He’d done his research on her, had heard the whispers of the fairy boy from the Kokiri forests, and he wonders how it comes that she grew up there, tucked away from the world, and what a startling change it must have been to go from the notoriously peaceful, if reclusive, childlike beings to a society that seeped and bubbled with ugliness.

 _Too young_ , that had been the first thought going through his mind when he saw her all those years ago. Wide-eyed in a scruffy tunic, small hands wrapped around the handle of the Master Sword as he stepped through the doors just as it flared up in a brilliant blue light.

And then she’d simply been gone.

 _Not gone,_ he corrects himself as he watches her, _sealed away._

Ganondorf splits a dragon fruit in half, peeling some of the shell away before biting down.

He hasn’t yet asked her about it, suspects her too raw for such a thing yet with the haunted look that’d crept into her eyes when his fingers grazed against the paper covered in nothing but blackness.

He wonders how aware she'd been and just what it meant to be locked away only to be thrown out in a game played by the Princess in her clever disguise as a Sheikah boy.

No, the world hadn’t been kind to its Hero who pressed into a kind touch with desperation.

The way she responded to him was perfectly natural and he hadn’t been terribly surprised to wake up hard, the pupils in her blue eyes blown wide, overwhelmed and not quite sure what to do in response to her body’s wants and desires as she squirmed against him.

He hadn’t quite been able to resist the urge to roll up against her, just to see what she’d do, only to have her press down, chasing the pleasure of it.

Ganondorf shifts, hiding the growing hardness with the soft wrap of his sarong as he recalls the softness of her, the warmth and wetness of her that dripped down his fingers as she squeezed down.

To have such a young body so readily desire his…

He’d been truthful with her when he told her that he didn’t feel love – not in the romantic, fanciful way that most did, but he’d indulged his desires with Nabooru on more than one occasion before they fell out of sorts with each other and he’d treasured her dearly as a close friend.

He knew he’d have to establish things with her sooner or later with the way she chased and arched into his touch, so starved for affection that she greedily sought what he offered freely. But he hadn’t expected it this soon – would have thought her strange aversion to her own touch and body would give him a few more months at least.

He grimaces slightly before hiding it away as she peers at him, spotting the food and reluctantly dragging herself away from the large red bloom she’d been studying.

It shouldn’t please him, the way she tucks herself up close up beside him without hesitation, but it does, and he allows her to explore the offerings, grasping for the meat dipped in a spicy covering that she’d taken an early liking to during her stay.

He suspects she must have stayed with the Gorons for a time for she didn’t struggle like most Hylians did with spicy food.

He offers her the wine to wash it down and she does so with a little wrinkle of her nose that softens something inside of him and he breathes out and shifts before giving her a little tug to draw her willing body into his lap where she settles with a little tilt of her head, unafraid when most would falter, seeking his touch when most scrambled to get away from it.

“You and I need to have a little talk, Hero,” he tells her with a brush of his thumb to catch at a fleck of red chili at her lip, a small pink tongue darting out soon after as if to check for more. “But before that, I want you to know I’m not angry with you and if you’re willing to, I would not be opposed to exploring what happened last night more extensively.”

His cock twitches in interest at the possibility of guiding her in the art of giving and receiving pleasure, his mind more than happy to indulge what she might look like with her pretty lips wrapped around his shaft.

To have the vessel of the Triforce of Courage respond and arch for him and him only.

“I’ve been indulgent with you and I understand there is a lot of things you’re discovering about yourself and I want you to know that while I am always open and receptive to your touch it is not something you can just do with anyone without verbal consent from them.” The thought of her with anyone else makes something ugly twist inside of him but he’s over forty and she’s not yet in her twenties, he knows they’re not made to last and he forces it down.

 _‘I understand,’_ she signs and then- ‘ _Only with you’_ which makes him wish he hadn’t drawn her into his lap as he shifts her surreptitiously closer to his thigh and away from the growing bulge of his cock because _Hylia, help me,_ he thinks a bit helplessly.

He wonders if she knows what kind of picture she makes with her messy blonde hair and wide blue eyes staring trustingly, if a bit solemnly, up at him.

“I also-“ he says with a rough swallow and a clearing of his throat. “Need you to work with me here because there are things you enjoy and there are things that makes you bolt and pleasure involves all of your body.”

She tenses and he breathes out, resisting the urge to draw her close and erase the hesitance from her eyes.

Which is a ridiculous notion to have about his should-be-enemy.

“Can you tell me why your body makes you shy away the way you do?” he asks her heavily for he needs to understand to know what to do about it. It wasn’t reasonable for her to react the way she did – unable to dress or even wash without sending herself spiralling.

For a long moment she just stares at him, hands folding and unfolding in her lap.

 _‘It doesn’t feel like my body,_ ’ she signs to him slowly and he breathes out internally. _‘Seven years and then-‘_ she gestures vaguely to herself. _‘Doesn’t feel r-i-g-h-t.’_ Her face twists up. _‘Wrong. All of it.’_

So he was right then.

 _‘R-e-m-e-m-b-e-r long time in nothing,’_ she tells him and he’s careful to hide his surprise at the admittance. _‘Dark. Lonely. Long time. C-o-u-n-t-i-n-g and counting and counting and coun-‘_ His hands curls gently around hers, stilling her half-way through her signing.

“You’re not there anymore,” he says but she shakes her head, visibly upset as a tremor ran through her.

 _‘Seven years,’_ she tells him a rough twists. _‘They took seven years-‘_

“I know,” he soothes. “I know – they had no right to take that from you.”

Her lips wobbles and he brushes away at a tear running down her cheek, another escaping to drip down her chin and she pushed forward and into his arms as he allows himself to draw her close.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her as her hand curls into the fabric of his sarong. “They had no right. No right at all,” he whispers against her ear as he holds her, breathing out heavily as anger twists inside his chest.

At Nabooru for encouraging it and supporting it, at the Princess for orchestrating it, at the fate that tied them together twisted and greedy with the glowing triangles of the Triforce.

Power, Courage, Wisdom – a constant loop written into history.

He’d found a blessing in his, a chance to make better for his people, and the Princess had made use of hers in that frightfully clever way of hers that had allowed her to slip out of his fingers once more, but the Hero had found nothing but ruin in hers that pitted her against him without consent or want.

Seven years stolen from her, locked away from everything and not given a chance to grow with the changes of her body even as time ticked away around her inside the walls of the Temple of Time only to be spat out and expected to save the world that had condemned her.

The pieces slotting together makes for an ugly picture.

He thinks of her in that dark green tunic, Master Sword resting point-down against the rug to the throne room, eyes begging for respite.

And he thinks of his own self-indulgent urge to offer it.

A fanciful whim – he’d always been good at reading people, to make the offers they wanted to hear, it was how he’d gotten so close with the Hyrule King before killing him. _Thieves,_ the man had called his people and Ganondorf had resented him as money and needs were denied over and over again despite the rough climate of the desert even as he smiled for him.

 _“You want to go home,”_ that’s what he’d told the Hero as she tilted her head into his palm, so starved for affection that she couldn’t deny herself it even at the hands of her biggest foe.

But she had no home to return to – her body too old for the Kokiri to accept her back. She’d always be an outsider among them.

 _But there’s no reason she can’t make a new one,_ he finds himself thinking as he draws her body closer, lax now that she’d cried herself into a deep exhausted sleep.

It’s a foolish sort of thing to think because she might be young and lost but she wouldn’t stay that way forever. She’d heal and she’d grow strong again, given time, and every day she remained alive was a day she remained a threat to him and his plans.

The offer was never supposed to be a permanent one. He’d half-thought to give her a room to stay in and leave her to figure things out but then she’d insisted on staying with him, in his room, and he’d indulged her and kept indulging her.

And now he’d brought her here – to the small haven he’d found as a young boy with his best friend by his side.

 _You’re invested,_ a voice that sounds suspiciously like Nabooru’s brushes teasingly through his mind and he grimaces as he breathes out roughly, resting his chin on top of her head.

“There’s time yet,” he says in Gerudo tongue and he can almost hear the laughter of his once-friend as he closes his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As an apology for the very late update of the last chapter, have another one. I didn't originally plan on having Ganondorf's POV here but he sorta... slunk in, and it made sense, and I think we needed to know what is going on outside the walls and Link isn't quite ready mentally to go there.
> 
> Ganondorf being the Adult here just has me in such a good mood. I don't know, I've always just gotten the sense that he'd be the sort of establish ground rules - you kinda have to as a King. We also get a taste of some of his conflicted feelings regarding the entire thing and I finally get to dip my fingers into some of my headcanons about his relationship with Nabooru and what they were as King and Second-in-Command.
> 
> A L S O. As you might have noticed last chapter there will be sex - I mostly incorporated it because it felt natural for Link as she is and I think it's a good way for her to figure things out. There will still be plenty of non-sexual intimacy beyond that but she's curious and she likes him touching her and having it feel good is a bit of a revelation for her.
> 
> (I also need to research clothing, I don't think sarong is quite the word I was looking for but I'm hesitantly sticking it there as I figure this out - I didn't have any good ones in my clothes-doc so, research. Feel free to hit me up if you know anything!)
> 
> Also, does Ganondorf horse have a canon or fanom name that I don't know of? I can't keep calling it _horse_. Halp.
> 
> All in all, this has been chapter 4 of You Branded Me a Hero and I hang about tumblr as artsy-death.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Left With Nowhere to Return](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20806100) by [MeadowMellow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeadowMellow/pseuds/MeadowMellow)




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